Everyone likes a good film. I like Dystopias. They’re like fictional documentaries. They present an idea of the future and they bring warnings to us either directly or through a deeper subtext. They are thinking films. Entertaining, but not for the sake of entertainment – they get your mind working and they provoke you and make you question. Right up my street.
While each of the films listed below is superb in its own right, 2001 A Space Odyssey is something else. The ageing trailer fails to communicate the depth of the film and its testing storyline. The film has a presence of its own, a quality that draws you in and will not let you go until the conclusion. Its a long long film, it has long segments with little verbal script, but unless you’re a fidgit or have a short attention span, its worth getting a huge bowl of Popcorn for. I’ve watched the film so many times now, every time I seem to see something new or make a mental connection in the storyline which for the most part is left to the viewer to interpret. Like Kubricks A.I. film more recently, 2001 transcends time in a way that you won’t expect. This, to me, is the best film ever made to date. It will make you think, question and will stun you when you return to earth as the credits role.
2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)
“2001″ is a story of evolution. Sometime in the distant past, someone or something nudged evolution by placing a monolith on Earth (presumably elsewhere throughout the universe as well). Evolution then enabled humankind to reach the moon’s surface, where yet another monolith is found, one that signals the monolith placers that humankind has evolved that far. Now a race begins between computers (HAL) and human (Bowman) to reach the monolith placers. The winner will achieve the next step in evolution, whatever that may be. (IMDB)
District B13 (2004)
In the near future, the worst ghettos of Paris, France are literally walled off and among the worst is District B13. Controlled by the ruthless crime lord, Taha, a young righteous punk named Leïto is determined to bring him down. When the boss retaliates by kidnapping his sister, Lola, a rescue attempt by Leïto is destroyed by betrayal that gets him arrested and Lola kept in the clutches in Taha. Six months later, a crackerjack undercover cop named Damien is given a urgent mission: a neutron bomb has been stolen by Taha in District B13 which has an automatic timer function engaged and set to detonate in less than 24 hours. Now with time running out, Damien and Leïto must work together to find and stop the bomb, but there is far more to this crisis than any of the field players realize. (IMDB)
Thx 1138 (1971)
George Lucas adapted this, his first film, from a short he made at University. THX 1138, LUH 3417, and SEN 5241 attempt to escape from a futuristic society located beneath the surface of the Earth. The society has outlawed sex, with drugs used to control the people. THX 1138 stops taking the drugs, and gets LUH 3417 pregnant. They are both thrown in jail where they meet SEN 5241 and start to plan their escape. (IMDB)
Twelve monkeys (1995)
An unknown and lethal virus has wiped out five billion people in 1996. Only 1% of the population has survived by the year 2035, and is forced to live underground. A convict (James Cole) reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to 1996 to gather information about the origin of the epidemic (who he’s told was spread by a mysterious “Army of the Twelve Monkeys”) and locate the virus before it mutates so that scientists can study it. Unfortunately Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990, six years earlier than expected, and is arrested and locked up in a mental institution, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly, a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines, the insane son of a famous scientist and virus expert. (IMDB)
Pi (1998)
In Manhattan, behind six locks, lives Max Cohen, a mathematician and computer whiz. Since staring at the sun at age six, he’s had terrible headaches; plus, he can’t abide human contact except with an aging professor, and he’s obsessed with finding numeric patterns. His current obsession is the stock market; his theories bring him to the attention of Wall Street traders. He also keeps running into Lenny, a fast-talking Chasidic who fronts for a cabal that wants to rediscover long-lost mathematical mysteries in the Torah. Neither group is benign, and they pursue Max as his hallucinations and headaches worsen. Does nature offer any solutions? Can Max find them? (IMDB)
